NCJ Number
79471
Date Published
1981
Length
25 pages
Annotation
This report describes and evaluates the activities of the Indian Youth Services (IYS) component of the Urban Child Resource Center (CRC) located in Oakland, Calif. IYS provides court and school advocacy, counseling, and supportive services to Indian teenagers.
Abstract
The introduction to this LEAA grant report, which covers the period October 1978 to January 1981, first provides a summary of all services offered by the CRC and identifies problems of urban Indian adolescents which prompted the formation of the IYS program. A description of the IYS's administration addresses staffing patterns, including education and Indian tribe affiliation, training, supervision, and intake procedures. Program objectives and actual accomplishments are then outlined for the following areas: sensitizing public agencies to the special needs of American Indian delinquents, providing counseling and other supportive services based on an outreach approach, informing Indian delinquents and their families of their legal rights and responsibilities, and providing referrals to specialized agencies. Measures used to evaluate the program's effectiveness included total number of clients within a target population who were served, rate of return of youths to their families from out-of-home placement, and decreases in delinquencies. Over a 24-month period, the project served 83 clients out of an anticipated 100 families. Of the 43 youths in out-of-home placements, 58 percent returned to their families. A 24-percent decrease in repeated offenses by the youths involved in the project was observed. Overall, the evaluation results indicated that the IYS met its objectives and was a worthwhile service program to Indian youths and their families. Organizaion charts and tables accompany the report. The appendixes contain a schedule of staff training activities, lists of outreach contacts and referral sources, and statistics on clients' legal, employment, housing, school, and health problems.